Gregory Kaidanov

Gregory Kaidanov, Seattle 2002
Association	Soviet Union (until 1991) Russia (1992 to 1993) United States (since 1994)
Born	October 11, 1959 Berdychiv , Soviet Union
title	International Master (1987) Grand Master (1988)
Current  Elo rating	2549 (August 2020)
Best Elo rating	2646 (October 2002)
Tab at the FIDE (English)

Gregory Kaidanov ( Grigori Sinowjewitsch Kaidanow , Russian Григорий Зиновьевич Кайданов ; born October 11, 1959 in Berdychiv , Ukraine ) is an American chess player of Ukrainian origin.

Life

Born in 1959 in Berdychiv, Ukraine, Kaidanov and his family moved to Kaliningrad, Russia, the following year . He learned chess from his father at the age of six and achieved his first success a few years later, in 1972, by winning the U14 championships in the Russian Federation. Kaidanov became International Master in 1987 , the following year he received the title of Grand Master .

In 1991 Kaidanov emigrated to the United States with his wife and then two children (now three). He lives in Lexington, Kentucky and works as a chess coach.

successes

One of Kaidanov's first major tournament victories was his success in Moscow in 1987, where he defeated the Indian Viswanathan Anand (see game diagram below), who became youth world champion in the same year . It was followed by further victories in 1989 in Vienna and in 1990 at the Hastings Masters . After emigrating to the USA, Kaidanov won the World Open in 1992 and the US Open in the same year .

In 1993 he won the World Team Championship with the USA team and was a member of the US national team at the Chess Olympiads from 1996 to 2006 . With her he won the bronze medal in 1996 and 2006 and the silver medal in 1998. In 2004 he achieved the second best performance on the fourth team board, which earned Kaidanov an individual silver medal. In addition, Kaidanov took part in the team world championships in 1997 (in which he reached second place with the team and achieved the best individual result of the reserve players) and 2007. In 2002 Kaidanov won the Aeroflot Open in Moscow ahead of 82 other grandmasters such as Alexander Grishchuk and Alexei Drejew . At the national championships in the USA he was third in 2007, and in April 2008 he finished the round- robin tournament of the Gausdal Classics in Norway in first place.

With his highest rating to date of 2646, he was 43rd in the world rankings in October 2002.

Game example

Kaidanov - Anand
Moscow 1987

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

White to move, position before 25. Qh5xf7 +!

The diagram was created in 1987 between Kaidanov and the then International Master Viswanathan Anand at the Moscow International Tournament. Kaidanov had put pressure on Anand's kingside with the white pieces in the Panow attack of the Caro-Kann defense and a few moves earlier sacrificed his bishop on h7 in order to get at the black king via the h-file. Since Anand's king threatened to escape via e7, Kaidanov found a small combination with a queen sacrifice that immediately ended the game:

25. Qh5xf7 +! and Anand gave up, as he will be checkmated in two moves :

25.… Rc7xf7 26. Ne5 – g6 + Kf8 – g8 27. Rh3 – h8 mate.

Web links

• Kaidanovs website (English)
• Replayable chess games by Gregory Kaidanov on chessgames.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} My Story , Kaidanov about himself on his website. (English)
2. ↑ ^{a b} Gregory Kaidanov's results at the World Team Championships on olimpbase.org (English)
3. ^ Kaidanov's Olympic statistics. (English)